For example, in the field of manufacturing semiconductor manufacturing equipment or liquid crystal display devices, a feed device is required that may linearly transport a processing object such as a large-area substrate at high speed and then perform positioning at an appropriate movement position with precision. In general, a feed device of this kind is realized by converting a revolving motion of a motor serving as a driving source into a linear motion by employing a motion conversion mechanism such as a ball screw mechanism. However, the motion conversion mechanism intervenes and hence places a limit on improvement in the movement speed. Further, the presence of a mechanical error in the motion conversion mechanism causes a problem of insufficiency in the positioning precision.
In order to treat this problem, in recent years, a feed device is employed in which a linear motor from which a linear motion output may be directly extracted is utilized as a driving source. The linear motor includes a stator of linear shape and a movable element moving along the stator. In the feed device described above, a linear motor of moving coil type is employed in which the stator is constructed by aligning a large number of plate-shaped permanent magnets at regular intervals and in which an armature provided with a magnetic pole tooth and an energization coil is employed as the movable element (for example, see Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. H3-139160).